The Year of Rice and Salt

'Indeed.' She turned to him, put her hands together. 'Thank you, husband, for showing me this great lake. It is truly magnificent. Now I can settle, let us live wherever you please. Xining, Lanzhou, the other side of the world, where once we met in a previous life wherever you like. It is all the same to me.' And she leaned weeping against his side.

For the time being, Ibrahim decided to settle the household in Lanzhou. This gave him better access to the Gansu Corridor, and therefore the routes to the west, as well as the return routes to the Chinese interior. Also, the madressa he had had the closest contact with in his youth had moved to Lanzhou, forced there from Xining by pressure from newly arrived western Muslims.

They set up their household in a new mudbrick compound by the banks of the Tao River, close to where it joined the Yellow River. The Yellow River's water was indeed yellow, a completely opaque sandy roiling yellow, precisely the colour of the hills to the west out of which it sprang. The Tao River was a bit clearer and more brown.

The household was bigger than Kang's old place in Hangzhou, and she quickly set up the women's quarters in a back building, staking out a garden in the ground around it, and demanding potted trees to begin the process of landscaping. She also wanted a loom, but Ibrahim pointed out that silk thread would be unavailable here, as there were neither mulberry groves nor filatures. If she wanted to continue weaving, she would have to learn to work wool. With a sigh she agreed, and began the process on hand looms. Embroidering silk cloth that was already made also occupied them.

Ibrahim meanwhile went to work meeting with his old associates in the Muslim schools and fellowships, and with the new Qing officials of the town, thereby beginning the process of sorting out and assisting the new political and religious situations in the area, which had changed, apparently, since he had last been home. In the evenings he would sit with Kang on the verandah overlooking the muddy yellow river and explain it to her, answering her endless questions.

'To simplify slightly, ever since Ma Laichi came back from Yemen, bearing texts of religious renewal and rectification, there has been conflict within the Muslims of this part of the world. Understand that Muslims have lived here for centuries, almost since the beginning of Islam, and at this distance from Mecca and the other centres of Islamic learning, various beterodoxies and error were introduced. Ma Laichi wanted to reform these, but the old umma here brought suit against him in the Qing civil court, accusing him of huozhong.'

Kang looked severe, no doubt remembering the effects of such delusion back in the inte rior.

Deluding the people, a serious offence anywhere in China.

'Eventually the governor general out here, Paohang Guangsi, dismissed the suit. But that did not end matters. Ma Laichi proceeded to convert the Salars to Islam they are a people out here who speak a Turkic language, and live on the roads. They are the ones you see in the white caps, who do not look Chinese.'

'Who look like you.'

Ibrahim frowned. 'A little, perhaps. Anyway, this made people nervous, as the Salars are considered dangerous people.'

'I can see why – they look like it.'

'These people who look like me. But no matter. Anyway, there are many other forces in Islam, sometimes in conflict. A new sect called the Naqshabandis are trying to purify Islam by a return to more orthodox older ways, and in China they are led by Aziz Ma Mingxin, who, like Ma Laichi, spent many years in Yemen and Mecca, studying with Ibrahim ibn Hasa al Kurani, a very great shaikh whose teachings are spread now all over the Islamic world.

'Now, these two great shaikhs came back here from Arabia with reforms in mind, after studying with the same people, but alas, they are different reforms. Ma Laichi believed in the silent recital of prayer, called dhikri, while Ma Mingxin, being younger, studied with teachers who believed prayers could be chanted aloud as well.'

'This seems a minor difference to me.'

'Yes.' When Ibrahim looked Chinese it meant he was amused by his wife.

'In Buddhism we allow both.'

'True. But they mark deeper divisions, as often happens. Anyway, Ma Mingxin practises jahr prayer, meaning spoken aloud. This Ma Laichi and his followers dislike, as it represents a new and even purer reli gious revival coming to this area. But they can't stop them coming. Ma Mingxin has the support of the Black Mountain sufis who control both sides of the Pamirs, so more of them are coming in here all the time, escaping the battles between Iran and the Ottomans, and between the Ottomans and the Fulanis.'

'It sounds like such a trouble.'